To be shocked this isn't getting more coverage?

Christianity is currently the largest and most influential religion in the world, with a history of extreme and ongoing persecution, oppression, and abuse towards women.

Can I ask why you’re not concerned about the influence of Christianity but are about the influence of Islam? Is it because you support Christianity so are OK with the abuses carried out in it's name?

In any case, it’s not naive in the slightest; it’s just sensible not to be worried about something that isn't going to happen in the UK.

Islam isn't predicted to become the largest religion globally until towards the end of the century, and even then, it won’t be a majority. In the UK, it’s very unlikely to ever become the majority religion—certainly not within anyone on this forum’s lifetime.

As I said, society and cultures aren't static, a hundred or so years ago many people where disgusted by the idea of women having the vote or people being openly gay but it happened anyway. If Islam does go on to become a world conquering religion in 100 years time then there's not a great deal you'll be able to do to stop it.

Unless you're advocating for the persecution of Muslims in western countries to prevent it spreading further, of course?

If if were likely to happen in my lifetime then no I wouldn't, but I've previously questioned whether democracy is the best form of governance and had my arse handed to me so I assumed, given the very strong defence of democracy, that there was widespread support for it.

But, it appears that support drops off rapidly when the outcome isn't well liked.

Exactly right. There are many extreme regimes that oppress a lot of people, usually the majority of those oppressed are women or gay people, but not always. And it would seem a lot of these regimes or movements can coincide with religion, most, but not all. Take incels for example.

We should always as a society as a whole recognise and accept people are entitled to their own views, and practices (religious or not) and they absolutely should not be persecuted for those, as long as they do not lean towards extremism. It’s also helpful to remember that not everyone who follows a certain religion, whatever that is, wishes for mass murder, oppression or whatever else and does not follow or agree with the extremisms of any lifestyle. Examples could be gay conversion therapy, which is abhorrent, oppression of women and girls, sharia law, outlawing abortion, cults, FGM (which is not advocated by any one religion and practiced by those of many religions, if any at all) and the list goes on and on.

Wherever any regime or religion exists, there will be those there willing to exploit it to their own extreme means and oppressing multiple people in the process.

It is not helpful to label anyone who raises legitimate questions and concerns as ‘racist’ or ‘GB News watchers’ (whatever that means) or ‘part of the recent riots’ to suggest anyone with concerns over any kind of extremism is somehow leaning one way is not right, unless you can prove so. Of course racists, or whatever, must not be allowed to flourish.

There must be space to allow legitimate concerns over extremism to be raised, whatever that extremism is, without people being fearful of repercussion or being shot down. Extremism is growing, in every sector of what or where people identify and this is the problem. Left or right, man or woman or otherwise, extremism is dangerous and poses a threat to everyone’s way of life. The sooner we realise this, and do not automatically jump to ‘you this; you bad. You this; you good’ the better our society as a whole can be. I feel this is a long way off. There is god and bad in everything, no matter how you present.

I commend those who at least got to the bottom of my post!

And are you part of the GB news propaganda who stirs up hatred and Islamophobia. Where is your factual evidence that the UK will become Muslim majority? Just ridiculous. Were you 'protesting' on the streets of the UK a few weeks ago by any chance?

Many religions it seems have some kind of micro aggression against women of some sort ie 'purifying' baths suggesting that women and periods are somehow unclean etc. I think Hinduism also has something similar as does Islam as there are rituals after menstruation. The bottom line is that all this suggests that women are inferior and dirty when they menstruate. All these ridiculous laws and rituals are made up by men who want women to be 'kept in their place'.

But in relation to the OP's initial question- yes it's completely shocking that the new laws in Afghanistan are not getting more news coverage.

Still nowhere close to the numbers needed to make Britain’s adult voting age population 50% Muslim in 25 years. Not even close.

Your numbers are miles off.

Don't forget the thousands and thousands still arriving.....

@angeldelite how boring. Another poster implying anyone who steps out of line on the ‘allowed’ comments must EDL/ a racist etc. I’m actually Irish so from a population who were oppressed by the British and I’m a young woman with a daughter hence finding the idea of a Muslim majority horrifying - I would hate my daughter to be oppressed like so many women in Muslim majority countries. It’s an awful life for women and it’s a valid concern.

Just one thing:
The similarities between the religions are there because the guy who made up Islam based his religion on Judaism, and to a certain degree the Christian societies in the ME area, to foster the same sense of loyalty between the brethren so they would fight for the same cause.

The whole point of this religion was not peace as such.
No religion in this area, bar perhaps the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and other similar hippies, were based on wishes for peace or love of your fellow human.

Here you go, newtlover; it's in the US not the UK and concerns flags rather than an actual parade, but an interesting article all the same - and you'll probably love the source:

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/17/hamtramck-michigan-muslim-council-lgbtq-pride-flags-banned

Actually be honest I am just as alarmed about the erosion of womens rights in parts of the US.

You'd think that men would find the implication that they couldn't countrol themselves insulting, wouldn't you, but I guess not.

Some of them are going down a very slippery path to justify their support for fundamentalist Islamists.

Support for Islamists is a by-product. In fact for many of them the anti-Semitism is just a by-product too. The basic point is that most of them hate anything that the United States supports, whatever that is. I suspect that often this is a reaction to a dislike of their own parents.

That still isn’t enough to make the U.K. majority Muslim in 25 years. 25 years is a very short period of time in demographic terms.

It’s estimated that the US will become majority minority in about 20 years. So ethnic minorities added together will outnumber the White population in 20 years time. The US is 57% white, 25 years ago it was 75% white. So it will take the US about 45 years to go from 75% white to dip below 50% white. That is with significantly higher net migration per capita than us too. So 45 years for the minority population to get from 25% to 50%.

The U.K. is currently only about 6.5% Muslim. The idea that in 25 years the Muslim population of 6.5% is going to become a majority because of migration from places like Pakistan and Bangladesh is just not feasible. Net migration and birth rate combined are still not enough to make that happen even if both increase significantly. Birthrates in a lot of those countries of origin are dropping dramatically so the idea that those communities in the U.K. will see their birth rate increase dramatically seems unlikely. The birth rate in Bangladesh is already below replacement rate.

@Menopausalsourpuss ,

I agree in general.

The Jewish community I am talking about have also failed to integrate and they refuse to educate girls. That is unacceptable in this country. But, no, they pose no threat to anyone outside their community, although the NY equivalent are a high proportion of the Jewish ‘settlers’ in the occupied territories, who most assuredly do.

But, that wave of immigration is done and represents a tiny proportion of the country. Moslem immigration does need to be managed, but not denied nor resented. Speed, education and integration are all important.

Yes @Newbutoldfather but there is no necessity to integrate where immigration has been so fast so there are whole communities which don't have any contact with mainstream Britain. Plus Orthodox Jewish members have not engaged in any terrorism or sent teachers into hiding - that is why people are fearful.

All extremist religions are not compatible with our values.

I am secular Jewish and there are pocket of the Jewish population which scare me. There was a scandal about the North London Jewish schools which claimed not to be schools where girls got very little bar religious education.

I do think Islam represents a bigger threat though, both because they are a higher percentage of the population and, I suspect, a higher proportion are less integrated.

I don’t think we should fear Moslems (or any other religions) though. We just need to decide what values and practices are mandatory to live in the uk and make every resident adhere to them without fear or favour. I think being able to speak English is also essential, at least as an aspiration. We shouldn’t have 2nd generation immigrants unable to speak English.

Generally, where populations integrate, they start to behave just like everyone else regardless of race or religion. We are all people at the end of the day.

But all the above starts with religious leaders accepting what is unacceptable within their own followers and making it abundantly and publicly clear.

Making me think of Madonna’s folly “Raising Malawi”
and pumped millions of her own, and donations into building a school for girls. Lots of local leadership support, having photo ops etc.

Each brick was laid, was then stolen/sold and used elsewhere. School supplies, etc all stolen/sold and school never close to being build. Madonna quietly ended her project.

Western folly.
West cannot change the culture and priorities of others, waving banners & flags, protests, fund raisers, charities. wars.
Just like they say - only you can change yourself - these cultures will only change if they want to.

No. You’re right. It was Trumps office which started the withdrawal. Biden sped it up!

Same here, felt tears in my eyes looking at those smiling faces and thinking about what is happening to women there now. This hatred of women that finds different levels of oppression and different ways of expression all around the world is so disturbing.

Birthrate figures projected for the future take no account of future inward migration, whether legal or illegal. And a large chunk of this is from mainly Muslim states such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, north African and east African nations. Net migration to the UK is currently about 700K per year. Yes, not all of those people will gain permanent residency, but the children of a large percentage of these people will presumably also be Muslim.

I think you're giving them too much credit, I don't think they give a flying fuck about the women paying for their shit decisions tbh.

agree
and the mental gymnastics it takes to be a "progressive" these days- it's exhausting, poor dears!
it's so much easier to tell the truth- it's a huge relief in fact
and I've been the other side- desperately trying to defend the indefensible because of this knowledge that it's what the good people think- it's the fashionable cause
I actually think this thread is far more robust than it would have been a couple of years ago- people are starting to speak up- the scales are falling

I think it's more that they don't give a shit, personally.

They couldn't prevent the Taliban getting back into power, they knew they'd have bigger fish to fry with Russia (who also got the hell out of Afghanistan having failed to achieve anything there) and they weren't there to make things nice for Women and Girls, they'd been there because of terrorism - which the Taliban, both with Trump and Biden, had agreed they wouldn't support if NATO went away, honest, guv.

Possibly throw in the heroin trade doing very nicely when the Taliban weren't around to torch fields and they basically gave it up as a bad job, particularly when Covid hit and some of the money was needed elsewhere.

It's never been about protecting women. Nothing ever is.

evidence?

Yes and like the Christians stolen in Britain by Muslims (the Barbary enslavement). What's your point?